


the plans and moves we made

by grim_lupine



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 08:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: For Yuuri, this week has been an exercise in compartmentalization, sifting the past from the present. He can see Viktor through eyes both twelve and twenty-four: the giddy flash of remembered worship flaring up in his chest when he sees Viktor skate with his hair streaming behind him like a banner; the realization crystallizing in his mind of how much there was — there is — hiding behind the bright smile Viktor shares freely. Similarly, to look at Viktor is to see one age laid over the other: this sixteen year old who is unfamiliar to him, except when he isn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i'm writing fic again. this fandom is a goddamn miracle
> 
> this is pageleaf's fault in so many ways
> 
> also content note: yuuri kisses sixteen-year-old viktor, if that's something you'd rather avoid

i.

“It’s been a week,” Yakov says, arms folded across his chest, brow furrowed in a frown. “A week and nothing’s changed.” 

“I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong,” Yuuri sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I don’t know, and _he_ doesn’t really know what he was feeling a week ago, so…”

Yuri ignores the both of them. He leans against the rink wall and watches Viktor glide across the ice, swanlike and intent, long hair streaming behind him, deaf to anything but the sound of his own skates and breath. 

Watching Viktor like this is uncomfortably like looking in a mirror: youth, lissome and vibrant, edged with the desperation of trying to outrun your own body while you can. Standing atop the world at sixteen and knowing you have to sustain and surpass and keep _surprising_ , wondering how it can be done. 

Viktor, at his usual age, appears too far removed from it to remember that feeling. Viktor at sixteen is steeped in it. 

There is nothing for Viktor to be practicing out there, when anything he does will be wiped out the moment he returns to normal, but Yuri watches him close his eyes and spin, arm outstretched in a plea that makes Yuri’s skin prickle, his teeth ache. There are times in your life when the ice is the only thing that makes any sense; Yuri knows that feeling intimately, but it makes him want to avert his eyes seeing it in Viktor before him, a glimpse at something he wasn’t meant to witness. 

“I wish I could help,” Yuuri murmurs, just loud enough for Yuri to catch it. They watch Viktor leap and hang aloft for a breathless instant, weightless and too bright to look at.

Viktor wobbles when he lands and catches himself with one hand; through the silvery curtain of his hair, Yuri sees the quivering of his mouth a split second before it smoothes out. The serenity is a mask, his smile his armor, as much as Yuri’s scowls and insults have ever been. Yuri knew that before, somewhere in the back of his mind, but it’s never been more evident than now. 

Yuuri exhales sharply. His expression, when Yuri turns to look at him, is bruiselike worry overlaying the sickening perpetual affection he and Viktor always exude when they’re around each other. Yuri has never seen Viktor the way Yuuri has; he’s not an idol but an ideal to aim for, to surpass. A mentor, yes, but with the fierce understanding that one day Viktor will let the torch slip from his fingers, and Yuri? Yuri will be the one to catch it. 

Yuri doesn’t know what to do here, with a Viktor that is none of those things. Not yet. Yuri couldn’t comfort someone if there were a gun to his head, and his usual prodding and insults would be ineffective at best, and at worst — 

There is one Viktor Nikiforov whose face Yuri wants to rub into the fact that his record doesn’t stand any longer, and this isn’t him.

Still, if being himself is what might help:

“ _Yakov_ ,” Yuri says sharply when Yakov looks like he’s forgotten the pointlessness of shouting unwanted advice at Viktor like this, caught in the heady draw of nostalgia. Yuri draws his brows together in an angry frown, juts his lip out a fraction. “Can we focus on someone you can actually help? Katsudon’s busy watching his teenage boyfriend, anyway.” 

“Fiancé,” Yuuri corrects mildly. The set of his mouth is amused, fond. Grateful. 

Yuri ignores the fact that he is standing next to two of the people who might actually be able to see right through him, as disturbing as that thought is. If he doesn’t admit to having a heart, no one can call him on it. 

Viktor skates on, silent. 

Yuri takes to the ice; if there’s nothing else he can do, at least now Viktor won’t be alone. 

 

 

ii. 

All things said, Viktor thinks he’s handling this pretty well — waking up in a room he doesn’t recognize, next to a man he doesn’t know; finding out that he, as he thinks of himself, doesn’t really...exist. 

‘Handling this pretty well’ in this case might not involve figuring out what he needs to do to return things to normal, but at least he’s not crying into his skates or melting down in any of the numerous ways he could be, so. 

It probably helps that Yuuri turns out to be not only handsome and dry and a soothing presence, but also so incredibly _kind_. 

Three days in, Viktor’s lacing up his skates to take to the ice, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He takes a minute to breathe away his anxiety, the quivering certainty in his gut that he isn’t doing _enough_ ; and then he hears Yuuri come up next to him, a tangible presence emanating warmth like a roaring fire in the dead of winter. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, in a voice steeped in sweet concern. “Are you — are you okay?”

Viktor bites the corner of his lip, hard. His smile, when he lifts his head and directs it at Yuuri, is beautiful and impenetrable. Viktor knows it is; he has practiced it enough. 

“Don’t worry about me!” he says brightly. “I’m just fine.”

Yuuri’s wince is a full-bodied thing, a near recoil. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says quietly. “I won’t ask again if you don’t want me to, but you can — you get to feel whatever you feel, happy or sad or anything in between. You don’t have to do that.” 

Viktor stares up at him, mouth going slack, pulse thunderous. Eventually, he manages to nod, but can’t find his words before Yuuri touches the top of his head with tender care and walks off. 

So it appears that Viktor — the Viktor whose life this actually is — has managed to not only win five Grand Prix Finals and World Championships, to answer the expectant spectators surrounding him with success and more success, but also land a man who looks at him with knowing eyes and touches him with such tenderness _anyway_. 

And he still isn’t satisfied? There’s still something that burns him so deeply that he can’t handle it without — without waking up like this, sixteen years old and twelve years too late for it — 

The anger that surges through Viktor is near-blinding, for one agonizing instant. He breathes out harshly through his mouth, relaxes his fists and ungrits his teeth. 

Something else Viktor has learned and practiced through the years: his anger is not useful. It can’t be shown. 

On the fifth day, Viktor finds Yakov talking to Yuri outside the rink and hangs around awkwardly until he’s done. It doesn’t take long, probably because Yuri spots him, makes a comically odd face, and leaves so fast there are practically tire marks left behind. It’s not unexpected, though; since Viktor met him five days ago, Yuri’s been eyeing him with looks an odd mix between fascinated and repelled. Viktor feels it too, watching Yuri on the ice. Echoes of familiarity, subtly wrong. 

Viktor has been making audiences love him since the moment he first understood the meaning of applause. In watching Yuri, he can see what it might have been like if he’d wanted them to fear him as well, just a little. 

Yakov and Viktor watch Yuri retreat, and then walk inside in a silence that is strangely not uncomfortable; but then, Yakov’s comfort is in his constancy. 

“Am I a good coach?” Viktor asks abruptly, tilting his head down to catch Yakov’s eyes as they walk. He’s watched all his own biggest performances, read his own history by now. It feels too far removed from himself to mean anything. _This_ is what he really wants to know about. This is new. 

Yakov eyes him for a long moment, mouth flat and familiar. “No,” he says bluntly. 

Viktor surprises himself by laughing aloud at that; it rings around them clear and bell-like, and he thinks he sees one corner of Yakov’s mouth lift in response. 

Yakov grabs his arm and they halt where they are. A little ways off, Viktor can see Yuuri stretching against the wall, earbuds in. His hair is pushed away from his forehead, curls a little wildly around his ears. Viktor looks at Yuuri and feels warm from head to toe, the same pure flush that moves through him every time he sees him.

He’s known him only five days. It doesn’t feel like five days. 

“But,” Yakov says quietly. “You were exactly what he needed. You still are.”

 

 

iii.

Yuuri lets himself into their apartment, shuts the door behind him and hears the low murmur of Yurio’s voice from the kitchen. His first instinct is to smile; after a week of this, it seems Yurio has finally understood the futility of ignoring Viktor until this gets resolved. 

Then he catches a strain of what is definitely the music to his Eros routine, and tunes in to the tail end of Yurio’s sentence. The smile freezes on his lips. 

“ — I mean, mine was better, but I guess this was good too or whatever,” Yurio is saying as Yuuri walks into the kitchen. Both Yurio’s and Viktor’s heads come up in unison where they stand, huddled around Yurio’s phone. The music plays on. 

“I figured he was tired of watching himself skate,” Yurio says. “I thought maybe seeing his, uh, coaching work might shake something loose.” There is a faint smirk playing on his lips. 

Viktor, when Yuuri looks at him, has a pleasant, smooth expression on his face. There isn’t a hair out of place. 

The fingers of his left hand are clutching the fabric of his shirt where it hangs at his hips. His ears are very pink. 

For Yuuri, this week has been an exercise in compartmentalization, sifting the past from the present. He can see Viktor through eyes both twelve and twenty-four: the giddy flash of remembered worship flaring up in his chest when he sees Viktor skate with his hair streaming behind him like a banner; the realization crystallizing in his mind of how much there was — there _is_ — hiding behind the bright smile Viktor shares freely. Similarly, to look at Viktor is to see one age laid over the other: this sixteen year old who is unfamiliar to him, except when he isn’t. 

“Thank you, Yurio,” Yuuri says calmly. “That was nice of you.” 

Predictably, Yurio flares up when accused of kindness. “Don’t call me that,” he grumbles, an empty reflex Yuuri is safe to ignore. 

“Sure,” he says mildly. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” 

“I have better things to do than hang out with you guys,” Yurio says, but he lets Yuuri hug him sideways and waves goodbye to Viktor before he leaves, which is an admirable show of camaraderie, coming from him. 

The air between Viktor and Yuuri, afterward, hums like a plucked string. Yuuri isn’t blind to the want on Viktor’s face, as naked as it is to him. Viktor’s been drawing closer and closer this week, orbiting Yuuri like a satellite, just hesitant to reach out and bridge that final gap. 

It isn’t that he sees this Viktor as a child; he remembers sixteen too well for that. It’s only that he doesn’t know exactly what Viktor wants from him. What he _needs_. Yuuri only ever wants to give him good things; good things are all he wants Viktor to have in life. 

The protectiveness that wells up in Yuuri’s heart is the same whatever age Viktor might be, at least. 

“Do you think I’ll ever change back?” Viktor asks abruptly. His arms are folded across his chest, now. 

Yuuri blinks at him, surprised. It never occurred to him to doubt that Viktor would. “Of course,” he says. “Of course you will. It’ll happen when you’re ready.” 

“And when will that be?” Viktor snaps. His eyes are overbright, a flush rising to his cheeks. 

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says, shaking his head. “Only you can know, I guess.”

“You’re so _calm_ ,” Viktor cries out, voice cracking in the middle of the last word. “How are you — why are you so _calm_?” His chest heaves as he sucks in a breath, and the glare he directs at Yuuri is a plea, cloaked in anger. 

Yuuri looks at him, stunned; doesn’t even know how to begin to respond to that. _God, if you only knew_ , he thinks, and then has to huff out a laugh. 

“Did you know I bombed my free skate at the 2015 Grand Prix Final?” he asks. “I came in last. Dead last.” He smiles at Viktor’s gaping surprise, and reaches out to tip his chin up with two fingers, closing his mouth. “I would have thought that would have come up sometime this week.” 

“It didn’t,” Viktor says quietly.

“My mistake,” Yuuri tells him. “Anyway, I was a wreck after that, basically ready to retire, until — well, you found me. You found me, and you supported me, and you brought me this far. I’m not calm, Viktor; unless you need me to be. And when I needed you to be, you’ve never let me down.”

Viktor’s lips are pressed tightly together, and there is the glitter of tears forming on the silvery sweep of his eyelashes. 

“Do you understand?” Yuuri asks gently. He holds himself where he is, though the space between him and Viktor feels as vast as a canyon. “I’ll be whatever you need me to be, Viktor. That’s what we do for each other.” 

Viktor exhales a shaky breath and launches himself at Yuuri, who catches him around the waist. Viktor kisses him, a blind breathless press of their mouths that’s more need than anything else, until Yuuri catches the back of his neck and gentles it. Viktor follows his lead, opens up for him and sighs a sweet, trembling sound against Yuuri’s mouth that makes Yuuri’s heart ache sharply. Slowly, Yuuri pulls away far enough to press his thumb into the divot of Viktor’s lower lip, watches Viktor’s eyelashes quiver. Then he kisses Viktor once more, soft and lingering. 

When it’s over, Viktor leans down, down, until he can rest his forehead against Yuuri’s shoulder. His breath is more even now, wafts hot against Yuuri’s skin. 

“So I choreographed that routine?” Viktor says at last, breaking the silence. “Not bad, if I may say so myself.” 

Yuuri laughs, grabs Viktor’s hair and gently tugs his head back up so they can look at each other.

“I can honestly say you were responsible for that performance in all aspects,” he says dryly. When he sees the flash of true pride and pleasure on Viktor’s face, something falls neatly into place in Yuuri’s mind. 

Over the last few days, Yuuri has come to realize that it’s not that he doesn’t know what’s bothering Viktor, in a large sense. It’s more that the exact shape of the problem isn’t clear to him; and beyond that, he doesn’t know what to say to fix it. He just knows that he has to be the one to say it, and it has to be right. 

“Come with me,” Yuuri says decisively, and grabs Viktor by the wrist to drag him to the bedroom. He leaves Viktor standing confusedly in the middle of the room while he rummages in the back of the closet, before emerging with a roll of paper that he hands to Viktor.

Viktor unrolls it and blinks to find himself looking at a poster of himself — one that he should recognize. 

“I idolized you when I was younger,” Yuuri says, and isn’t even embarrassed to voice it. “For a lot longer than that, to be honest. Now I just love you, but my point is — you deserved it. Deserve it.” 

He grabs Viktor’s face between his hands and tilts his head to make sure he’s looking — he wants him to remember every word. 

“You’ve done things you didn’t know you could do when you were younger. You’re going to keep doing things that make people wonder if you’re even human. And if that takes time, and whenever you decide to stop — I’ll be here, loving you through all of it. That’s what you rely on. Okay?” 

This whole evening — it’s the most he’s ever said about how he feels in words, all at once. It’s a little uncomfortable, a little terrifying, and wholly necessary. That much he can tell when he looks at Viktor’s face, tremulous and lit from within. 

“Okay,” Viktor says quietly, and the anxious edge that’s been visibly clinging to him this whole week melts away before Yuuri’s eyes. His body lists toward Yuuri, who catches him in an embrace, carding his fingers through Viktor’s hair. 

It feels like an ending, more peaceful than sad. 

“I’ll miss you,” Viktor murmurs softly, so softly Yuuri almost doesn’t catch it. 

“I’ll be right here,” Yuuri says. “I promise.” 

 

 

iv. 

Viktor wakes with the first morning light seeping in through the windows, curled into Yuuri’s body the way he’d fallen asleep the night before. He knows without looking that he is himself again. His body feels stronger and weaker both — the solidity of adulthood with the pains of age. 

His mind is, for the first time in a while, blessedly clear. The gaping maw of dread that’s been pulling at him, unnameable and seemingly too large for his body, is gone. 

It might not be gone forever. It probably won’t be. But when it comes back, he can handle it. He has that certainty, that conviction.

He has Yuuri, chest rising and falling under Viktor’s arm as he snores softly; Yuuri, who pulled him out of himself and told him the things Viktor didn’t even know he needed to hear, and that is everything in the world. 

“I can do this,” Viktor says aloud, to himself, to the ceiling, to the world; and means it.


End file.
